La Plume, PA – Visiting Immaculata University closed the first half of Wednesday evening's Colonial States Athletic Conference women's basketball game at Keystone College with a 26-5 run and never looked back on their way to an 81-51 victory in the Gambal Athletic Center. The Mighty Macs lift their record to 11-7 overall and 8-1 in conference action while the Giants slide to 8-9 on the season and 5-3 in league play.
Immaculata built a 16-9 advantage over the opening 7:20 of Wednesday night's contest before Keystone pushed back to within three points at 17-14 at the 10:44 mark when
Dyjae Williams (Newark, NJ/Bloomfield Tech) converted a pair of free throw attempts. The Mighty Macs countered though by outscoring the Giants 26-5 over the final nine and a half minutes of the period to take a 43-19 advantage into halftime.
Alison Zimny scored 12 first half points to lead all players while Brittany Merkle added 11 points and six rebounds for Immaculata in the first 20 minutes of action. The Mighty Macs shot 42.9 percent from the field in the opening frame while going 4-10 from beyond the arc and 9-13 from the free throw line.
Cierra Hensley (Frederick, MD/Frederick) and
Jazmyn Robinson (Hyattsville, MD/Northwestern) scored five points apiece in the first half to pace Keystone's offense while Hensley led all players with seven rebounds in the opening 20 minutes of play. The Giants struggled from the field in the opening stanza, connecting on just six attempts from the floor, but were a solid, 7-10 from the charity stripe in the frame.
Trailing 54-26 with 15:39 left in regulation, Keystone went on a 11-5 run to cut their deficit to 22 points with 12:18 left on the clock on a three-pointer by
Alyssa Cuomo (Odessa, DE/Hodgson Vo-tech), but that was as close as the Giants would come as Immaculata pushed their lead to as many as 33 points in the final minutes of the contest.
Merkle finished with a game-high 22 points and rounded out a double-double with a team-best 10 rebounds while Zimny finished with 18 points for Immaculata. Adriana Sciascia and Sara Smith netted 11 points apiece for the Mighty Macs with Sciascia dishing out a game-high six assists. The visitors finished the contest shooting 46 percent from the field, 35.7 percent from long range, and 66.7 percent from the free throw line and were plus-12 (12-24) in the turnover department in the victory.
Robinson netted a team-leading 14 points for Keystone while Cuomo and
Ashley Evans (Wooster, OH/Wooster) chipped in with nine points apiece. Hensley corralled a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with seven points,
Jerica Rode (Lords Valley, PA/Wallenpaupack) added 10 boards and blocked three shots, and
AAliya Hayes (New Rochelle, NY/New Rochelle) added six points and six rebounds for the Giants. The hosts, who held a 48-39 advantage on the glass for the contest, ended the night hitting on 28.8 percent of their attempts from the floor, but were just 3-18 from beyond the arc while going 10-16 (62.5 percent) from the stripe.
Keystone will begin a five-game road stand on Saturday afternoon when they travel to Baltimore, Maryland to take on Notre Dame of Maryland University in a CSAC contest. The Giants, who defeated the Gators 80-33 on January 10
th, will be looking to complete the season-sweep in a game slated to start at 2:30 p.m.
